In recent years, electric cars, hybrid vehicles, and the like equipped with motors as driving devices and equipped with batteries supplying electric power for driving the motors attract attention as environmentally friendly vehicles. Concerning such hybrid vehicles, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2006-139963 discloses a battery cooling device capable of holding a battery temperature in an appropriate temperate range.
This battery cooling device includes a cooling fan cooling a high voltage battery mounted on a vehicle, a car navigation system setting a driving route of the vehicle and also obtaining road information and traffic information about the set driving route, a temperature sensor detecting the temperature of the high voltage battery, and an ECU predicting a temperature of the high voltage battery in a case where the vehicle travels the driving route, based on the battery temperature, road information, and traffic information and also driving the cooling fan when it is predicted that the battery predicted temperature reaches a prescribed temperature Tmax or higher.
In recent years, even in hybrid cars, it has been contemplated to allow batteries to be charged from the outside. By enabling charging from the outside, the frequency of going to gas stations for refueling can be reduced by charging at night at home etc. In addition, exhaust gas from vehicles can be reduced. Moreover, it can also be expected that the driving costs can be reduced by using midnight electric power and the like.
Even for such externally chargeable vehicles, the battery capacity that can be installed is limited, and therefore it is often desired that charging is started as soon as the vehicle arrives at a destination if the destination is a place where charging is available. A battery, however, has a temperature range that is suitable for charging. The battery temperature is not always the temperature suitable for charging when the vehicle arrives at a destination. In such a case, the charging efficiency becomes worse.